"She's at peace," Daddy muttered. "Poor Sally Jean," he said and moved to the side of the gurney.
Everything in me broke loose. I cried harder than I had ever cried. My body shook and my chest ached. Daddy took Momma's hand into his and held it and simply stared down at her. Her face looked so peaceful. No more coughing, no more struggle. When I looked at her more closely, I thought I saw a slight smile on her lips. Daddy saw it, too, and turned to me.
"She must've heard you singing, Dawn. Just before she passed on, she must've heard."
I looked at Jimmy. He was crying now, but he stood so still, his firmly fixed on Momma. His tears ran down his cheeks freely and dripped off his chin. A part of him was fighting the show of emotion and a part of him was just letting go. The struggle dazed him. Then he wiped the tears away with the back of his hand and turned away. He started for the door.
"Jimmy!" I cried. "Where are you going?" He didn't answer. He just kept walking.
"Let him be," Daddy said. "He's like my side of the family. He's got to be alone when he hurts real bad." He looked back at Momma. "Good-bye, Sally Jean. I'm sorry I wasn't more of a husband for you; sorry the dreams we started with never took shape. Maybe now you'll realize some of them." He leaned down and kissed Momma for the last time. Then he turned, put his hand around my shoulder, and started out. I wasn't sure whether he was leaning on me for support or I was leaning on him.
When we left the hospital, we looked for Jimmy, but he was nowhere in sight.
"He ain't here," Daddy said. "We might as well go home, Dawn."
Poor Jimmy, I thought. Where could he be? It wasn't right for him to be all alone now, I thought. No matter how strong the Longchamps were when it came to hard times, everyone needed comfort and love when he or she was cast so deeply into the pool of tragedy as we were. I was sure he was feeling the same deep pain I was, feeling as if his heart had been ripped out, as if he were made hollow and so weak and light, a gust of wind could wipe him away. He probably didn't care anymore, didn't care what happened to him or where he would go.
Despite his hard shell, Jimmy had always suffered something terrible whenever Momma was unhappy or sick. I knew that many times he ran off just so he wouldn't have to see her unhappy or exhausted. Perhaps he had become real acquainted with loneliness and solitude and had retreated to some dark spot to cry with his shadow. The thing was I needed him as much as I hoped he needed me.
After we had stepped out of the hospital, I noticed that all the stars were gone. Clouds had come rolling in and swept away the brightness and the light. The world was dismal, dark, somber, and unfriendly.
Daddy embraced me and we went on to the car. I rested my head against his shoulder and lay there with my eyes closed all the way home. We didn't say anything to each other until we drove down our street.
"It's Jimmy," he said as we pulled up in front of the apartment building. I sat up quickly. Jimmy was sitting on the stoop. He saw us, but he didn't get up. I got out of the car slowly and approached him.
"How did you get home, Jimmy?" I asked.
"I ran all the way," he said, looking up at me. The small light at the doorway threw enough illumination over him for me to see the redness in his face. His chest was still heaving. I could imagine just what it had been like for him running all those miles, pounding the pavement to drive away the blackbird of sorrow that had made a nest in his heart.
"We made all the arrangements, son," Daddy said. "You might as well come inside now. There ain't nothing else we can do."
"Please come inside, Jimmy," I pleaded. Daddy went to the door. Jimmy looked up at me, and then he stood up and we went into the apartment house.
Thankfully, Fern was fast asleep. Mrs. Jackson was very sympathetic and offered to come in early in the morning to help with Fern, but I told her I could do it all. I needed and wanted to keep myself busy.
After she left, the three of us stood there silently, almost as if none of us knew what to do next. Daddy went to his bedroom door, and then he broke into heavy sobbing. Jimmy looked at me and we both embraced him. We held each other tightly and cried until we were all too exhausted to stand. Never before had the three of us welcomed sleep as much.
Of course, we couldn't afford a fancy funeral. Momma was buried in a cemetery just outside of Richmond.
Some of the people Daddy worked with at the school attended, as well as Mrs. Jackson. Mr. Moore came and told me that the best thing I could do for my mother's memory was continue with my music. Philip brought Louise.
I had no idea what we would do now. The school gave Daddy a week off with pay. Daddy went over his accounts and said with a little tightening here and there we could afford to give Mrs. Jackson something to watch Fern while Jimmy and I were at school, just so we could finish off the year, but Jimmy, more than ever, didn't want to return to Emerson Peabody. We didn't have many more days to go to complete the semester. I begged Jimmy to reconsider and at least finish up, and I think he might have relented and done it, too, if we hadn't woke up one morning a few days later to a loud knocking on our door. There was something in the way the knocking echoed through our apartment that sent chills up and down my spine and made my heart pound.
It was a knocking that would change our lives forever and forever, a knocking at the door that I would hear in a thousand dreams to come, a knocking that would always wake me, no matter how deeply I slept or how comfortable I was.
I was just getting up and had put my robe on to go out to the kitchen and make breakfast. Little Fern was stirring in her crib. Although she was too young to understand the nature of the tragedy that had befallen us, she sensed some of it in our voices, in the way we moved about, and in the expression in our faces. She didn't cry as much or want to play as much, and whenever she looked for Momma and didn't find her, she would turn toward me and look at me with sad, inquisitive eyes. It made my heart sick, but I tried not to cry. She had seen enough tears.
The knocking at the door frightened her, and she pulled herself up in her crib and began to cry. I hoisted her up and into my arms.
"There, there, Fern," I cooed softly. "It's all right." I could hear Momma saying the same words to her time and time again. I squeezed Fern tightly to me and started out, just as Daddy came to his doorway. Jimmy sat up in the pull-out. We all looked at one another and then at the door.
"Who can that be this early?" Daddy muttered and ran his hand through his messed hair. He scrubbed his face with his dry palms to wake himself a bit more and then started across the living room to the doorway. I stood back beside Jimmy and waited. Fern stopped crying and turned toward the door, too.
Daddy opened the door, and we saw three men—two policemen and a man I recognized as the security guard at the hospital.
"Ormand Longchamp?" the taller of the two policemen said.
"Yeah?"
"We have a warrant for your arrest."
Daddy didn't ask what for. He stepped back and sighed as if something he had always expected had finally taken place. He lowered his head.
"I recognized him the first time I seen him at the hospital," the security guard said. "And when I heard the reward still stood—"
"Recognized who? Daddy, what is this?" I cried, my voice filled with panic.
"We're arresting this man on the charge of kidnapping," the taller policeman said.
"Kidnapping?" I looked to Jimmy.
"That's stupid," Jimmy said.
"Kidnapping? My daddy didn't kidnap anyone!" I cried. I turned back to Daddy. He still hadn't responded in his own defense. His silence frightened me. "Who could he have kidnapped?" I asked.
The security guard spoke up first. He was proud of his achievement.
"Why, he kidnapped you, honey," he said.
8
DADDY . . . A KIDNAPPER?
Chilled with fear, I sat alone in a small room without windows in the police station. I couldn't stop shivering. Once in a while my teeth chattered. I embraced myself and gazed around the ro
om. The walls were a faded beige, and there were ugly scuff marks along the bottom of the door. It looked like someone had been kicking at it, trying to get out. The room's light came from a single bulb in a silver-gray fixture dangling at the end of a chain from the center of the ceiling. The bulb threw a pale white glow over the short, rectangular light metal table and chairs.
The police had brought all of us here in two cars: a car for Daddy and a car for Jimmy, Fern, and me; but once we arrived, they separated all of us. Jimmy and I were sure this was all a terrible mistake, and soon they would realize it and return us to our home, but this was the first time I had ever been inside a police station, and I was more afraid than I'd ever been before.
Finally the door opened and a short, plump policewoman entered. She wore a uniform jacket with a dark blue skirt, a white blouse, and a dark blue tie. Her reddish-brown hair was cut short and she had bushy eyebrows. Her eyelids drooped so that she looked sleepy. She was carrying a notepad under her arm and went around the table to the other side. She sat down, put the pad on the table, and looked up at me without smiling.
"I'm Officer Carter," she said.
"Where's my little sister and where's my brother?" I demanded. I didn't care who she was. "I want to see my daddy, too," I added. "Why did you put us all into separate rooms?"
"Your daddy, as you call him, is in another room being questioned and booked for kidnapping," she said sharply. She leaned forward with both her arms on the table. "I'm going to complete our investigation, Dawn. I have some questions to ask you."
"I don't want to answer questions. I want to see my sister and my brother," I repeated petulantly. I didn't like her, and I wasn't going to pretend I did.
"Nevertheless, you will have to cooperate," she proclaimed. She straightened up sharply in her seat, bringing her shoulders back.
"It's all a mistake!" I cried. "My daddy didn't kidnap me. I've been with my momma and daddy forever and ever. They even told me how I was born and what I was like as a baby!" I exclaimed. How could she be so stupid? How could all these people make such a horrible error and not see it?
"They kidnapped you as a baby," she said and gazed down at her pad. "Fifteen years, one month and two days ago."
"Fifteen years?" I started to smile. "I'm not fifteen yet. My birthday isn't until July tenth, so you see—" "You were born in May. They changed it as part of the cover-up of their crime," she explained, but so nonchalantly it turned my blood cold. I took a deep breath and shook my head. I was already fifteen? No, I couldn't be, none of this could be true.
"But I was born on a highway," I said, hot tears burning into my eyes. "Momma told me the whole story a hundred times. They didn't expect it, I was delivered in the back of the pickup truck. There were birds and—"
"You were born in a hospital in Virginia Beach." She gazed at her pad again. "You weighed seven pounds and eleven ounces."
I shook my head.
"I have to confirm something," she said. "Would you please unbutton your blouse and lower it."
"What?"
"No one will intrude. They know why I am in here. Please," she repeated. "If you don't cooperate," she added when I didn't move, "you will only make things harder on everyone, including Jimmy and the baby. They have to remain here until this investigation is completed."
I lowered my head. The tears were escaping now and zigzagging down my cheeks.
"Unbutton your blouse; lower it," she commanded. "Why?" I looked up, grinding the tears away with my small fists.
"There is a small birthmark just below your left shoulder, isn't there?"
I stared at her, the cold wave rushing over me and streaming down my body, turning me into a statue made of ice.
"Yes," I said, my voice barely audible.
"Please. I have to confirm that." She stood up and came around the table.
My fingers were cold and stiff and far too clumsy to manipulate the buttons on my blouse. I fumbled and fumbled.
"Can I help you?" she offered.
"No!" I said sharply and succeeded in opening my blouse. Then I lowered it over my shoulders slowly, closing my eyes. I sobbed and sobbed. I jumped when she put her finger on my birthmark.
"Thank you," she said. "You can button your blouse again." She went back to her seat. "We have footprints to match . . . just to finish the confirmation, but Ormand Longchamp has confessed anyway."
"No!" I cried. I buried my face in my hands. "I don't believe it, none of it. I can't believe it?'
"I'm sure it's a shock to you, but you're going to have to believe it," she said firmly.
"How did all this happen?" I demanded. "How . . . Why?"
"How?" She shrugged and looked at her pad again. "Fifteen years ago, Ormand Longchamp and his wife worked at a resort in the Virginia Beach area. Sally Jean was a chambermaid, and Ormand was a handyman at this hotel. Soon after you were brought home from the hospital, Ormand and"—she looked at the pad again—"Sally Jean Longchamp stole you and a considerable amount of jewelry."
"They wouldn't do such a thing!" I moaned through my tears.
She shrugged again, her pale face indifferent, her dull eyes unfeeling, as if she had seen this happen time after time and was used to it.
"No . . . no . . . no . . ." I'm in the middle of a nightmare, I told myself. Soon it will end and I will wake up in my bed back at our apartment. Momma won't be dead, and we will all be together again. I'll hear Fern squirming in her crib, and I'll get up and make sure she's warm and comfortable. Maybe I'll peek out at Jimmy and see his head silhouetted in the darkness as he sleeps soundly on the pull-out. I'll just count to ten slowly, I told myself, and when I open my eyes . . . one . . . two . . .
"Dawn."
"Three . . . four . . . five . . ."
"Dawn, open your eyes and look at me."
"Six . . . seven . . ."
"I'm supposed to prepare you for your return to your real family now. We are going to leave the station shortly and . . ."
"Eight . . . nine . . ."
"Get into a police car."
"Ten!"
I opened my eyes, and the unobstructed harsh light burned away all hope, all dreams, all prayers. Reality came thundering down over me.
"No! Daddy!" I screamed. I stood up.
"Dawn, sit down."
"I want Daddy! I want to see Daddy!"
"Sit down this moment."
"Daddy!" I screamed again. She had her arms around me, holding my arms down at my sides and forcing me back into the chair.
"If you don't stop this, I'll have a straitjacket put on you and deliver you that way, do you hear?" she threatened.
The door opened and two police officers stepped in.
"Need any help?" one asked. I gazed up at them, my eyes on fire with the terror and the anger and the frustration. The younger officer looked sympathetic. He had blond hair and blue eyes and reminded me of Philip.
"Hey," he said. "Take it easy, honey."
"I've got this under control," Officer Carter replied. She didn't ease her embrace, but I let my arms relax.
"Yeah, you look like you're doing a terrific job," the younger policeman said.
She released me and stood up.
"You want to do this, Dickens?" she asked the young policeman.
I caught my breath and subdued my sobs, my shoulders heaving as I gasped for air. The young policeman looked down at me with his soft blue eyes.
"It's a raw deal for a kid this age. She's about my sister's age," he said.
"Oh, boy," Officer Carter said. "A social worker in disguise."
"We'll be right outside when you're ready," Patrolman Dickens said, and they left the room.
"I told you," Officer Carter said, "that if you aren't cooperative, you will just prolong the difficulties, especially for your stepbrother and stepsister. Now, are you going to behave, or do I have to leave you in here for a few hours thinking about it?"
"I want to go home," I moaned.
"You are going hom
e, to your real home and your real parents."
I shook my head.
"I need to do that footprint now," she said. "Take off your shoes and socks."
I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. "Damn," I heard her say and a moment later felt her taking off my shoes. I didn't resist, nor did I open my eyes. I was determined to keep them closed until all this had ended.
Some time later, when it was all over, the two policemen who had been waiting outside returned and stood by as Officer Carter completed her report. She looked up from her notepad.
"The captain wants us to get started," Patrolman Dickens announced.
"Terrific," Officer Carter said. "You want to go to the bathroom, Dawn? This is the time."
"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice seemingly drifting away from me. I felt as if I were floating. I was in a daze, time and place were lost. I had even forgotten my name.
"You're going home, to your real family," she replied.
"Come on, honey," Patrolman Dickens said, taking my arm gently and helping me to my feet. "Go on. Use the bathroom and wash your face. You have funny little streaks across your cheeks from crying, and I know once you wash them off, you'll feel better."
I looked at his warm smile and kind eyes. Where was Daddy? Where was Jimmy? I wanted to hold Fern in my arms and kiss her soft, pudgy cheeks until they were red. I would never complain about her whining and crying again. In fact, I wanted to hear her whine. I wanted to hear her chanting: "Dawn, up. Dawn, up," and see her reaching for me.
"This way, honey," the patrolman said. He directed me toward the bathroom. I washed my face. The cold water on my cheeks did restore some of my energy and awareness. After I had used the bathroom, I came out and looked at the policemen expectantly.
Suddenly another door across the hall opened, and I saw Daddy sitting in a chair, his head down to his chest.
"Daddy!" I screamed and ran toward the opened door. Daddy lifted his head and gazed out at me, his eyes vacant. It was as though he were hypnotized and didn't see me standing there. "Daddy, tell them this isn't true; tell them it's all been a horrible mistake." He started to speak to me, but shook his head and looked down instead.
Cutler 1 - Dawn Page 13
